Hate crimes that weren't.

It's safe to say that there are a lot of stories that have been reported as hate crimes that weren't hate crimes.

The Matthew Shepherd story happened when I was thirteen. I always knew that as a story of a gay man being murdered because he was gay. That's how the media reported it.

The problem is, that's not true.

Shepherd was a meth dealer. His murderers have said that drugs and money were their motivations, not his sexual orientation.

I'm pushing forty, and it took me all this time to learn that the media were wrong in their reporting on the case.